Benefits of Organizational Reflection

Benefits of organizational watchingA successful agreement sight be described as thinking and seeing organization. much(prenominal)(prenominal) organizations ar characterized by high levels of selective information flow and sentiency among all its members. The availability of information improves the awareness and understanding of organisational weaknesses, strengths, threats and opportunities (Reynolds and Vince 2004). The organization members are also able to understand the history and strategic later onlife plans for their organization as swell as full awareness of the resources within the organization and the changing rivalry environment. On the other hand, a thinking organization is an understanding organization that has a well stipulated vision, mission, objectives and the line of solid grounding environment that are well understood by all the stakeholders. Many organizational businesses collapse beca character they want twain foresight and hind sight necessar y for understanding the current position of the organization. In ensuring an organization adopts the thinking and seeing style, thoughtfulness essential beat a part of the organizational practices and culture. Reflection essential be integrated in all the organizational activities because extension of organizational companionship kindle be done by any member of the organization irrespective of the level or the location in which s/he operates.Reflection is therefore a process that packs spending critical time outdoor(a) from the normal work routine in which individuals or groups think and interpret both personal or organization issues with the aim of getting previous experiences and lessons that whitethorn benefit a present situation (Boud, Cressey and Docherty 2006). At the corporate level, organizations set retreat days for its supply as well as reflectance sessions so that supply squirt reflect on what their nurse achieved, the way they stimulate performed, their co mpliance with the organization strategies, the challenges and threats they have faced as well as the experiences weaknesses and registered strengths. Reflection allows organization present ideas and previous experiences into usable companionship and actions. Reflection can be necessitated by personal experiences as well as organizational surgical process especially if the organization isnt meeting its set goals and objectives.Reflection process is very dependent on companionship management because it deals with intangible assets that need to be urinated and shared both inside and alfresco the organization to create a entropybase of heavy information and knowledge that can be utilized later to handle challenges in the organization. Reflection starts with raw experiences which are analyzed to information indeed associated with relevant skills and values to become knowledge which is main focus of many a(prenominal) organizations. Just like knowledge management, look involves capture and identification of ideas, information or knowledge because distributing it to charm individual within the organization leading to its application in a particular situation in the organization. The sole purpose of reproval is to create important knowledge that any organization entrust need in its present or rising performance. Reflection is also part of organizational eruditeness that is a knowledge management facet intended to equip supply with important knowledge and skills that will improve the surgerys and performance of the organization.Greenwood (2000), nones that the success and growth of organizations is highly depended on learn and knowledge extension (p. 126). Learning in an organizational setting is not only expressage to individual knowledge acquisition but also involves the combined learning abilities of all staff in that organization. Notably, individual learning is a subset and component of organization and without it, organizational learning won t exist. Organizational learning is a result of challenges that face employees in their work activities thus initiation of learning and advancement in knowledge to solve such challenges. though, challenges do not guarantee learning to occur, they combine with experiences to provide data and information which form the basis for learning.Generation of actions and problem work out are the key components of reflection at the workplace. Organizational reflection has presented required environment for self directed learning, action learning, problem and challenge found learning and to a greater extend the organizational learning (Reynolds and Vince 2004). Managers have noticed the necessity of reflection in their organization and they acknowledge that failure to reflect in the organization is equal to inviting the collapse of the operation of the organization. However, organizations have failed in implementing reflection strategies such that execution processes that go beyond individua l mandate and involve groups of members or the whole organization are not usually implemented thus compromising the use of organizational experience and limit implementation of expected actions.The application of reflection in organizational operations has received considerable attention in the last few decades. Organizations have created independent departments with adequate resources to change reflection process to occur and to work on the results of the reflection processes. The increased attention to reflection has been triggered by recognition of learning and generation of knowledge as components of organizational productivity and performance. Though learning and generation of knowledge may not be the only factors that can contribute to organizational change and performance, they number an all-round function in ensuring that all other resources in the organization are well integrated to realize organizational goals.Reflection is therefore an important human process that inv olves reviewing and understanding past experiences then drawing lessons from them. Reflection is less known in work places and managers have diminishedr knowledge concerning its fictitious character and importance in the organization of activities and improving performance (Boud, Cressey and Docherty 2006). There have been fewer opportunities for the practice of reflection at work particularly because many organizations have not yet established the role that can be played by real and scatd reflection. However, the 21st century has witnessed increasing concern and mouthful of the role that organizational reflection can play in fostering work results as well as improving employee learning. The recognition of reflection as an integral part of organizational management has triggered disparate kind of organizational learning and education that are in line with the traditional processes of organizational learning.Boud, Cressey and Docherty (2006) foreshadow out that productive org anizational reflection is an adoption of the general individual reflection that is focused untold on the use of past experience to generate important solution to present and future problems as well as promoting organizational training and learning (p. 12). successful organizational reflection has several important elements that combine to provide a structured system to guide generation and analysis of actions from experiences. Organizational wrapped and collective orientation element tries to create a distinction and a point of convergence in the midst of individual and organizational reflection. While previous reflections have focused on individual experience and generation of knowledge, productive organizational reflection is focused on collaborative review of experiences that lead to taking let actions with and for other participants with an aim of benefiting the organization as well as the whole group involved in the pondering activity. Such reflection is done in a situati on of the organization and must be incorporated and address the target of the organization.Collective reflection may be done at different levels of the organization depending on the organization management structure. Reflection may take place at the unclutter management, middle management level, and low level or at the small working groups and this may ascertain internal or external to the organization. However, collective reflection always starts at individual level after which separate reflections are combined and actions drawn from them. This element of organizational reflection ensures the interests of the individual members, the workgroup and the organization are taken into consideration.The other element of organizational reflection is its importance in integrating knowledge, learning and work. Productive organizational reflection can occur in any location, but its always confined to the working activities and any reflections outside it wont be considered a practice of organ izational reflection. Reflection is therefore triggered by work activities though there might be selected cases where importance and valuable reflection occur outside the context of working environment. Organizational reflection operates in the space that is created between the connections of work activities, the process of learning and generating knowledge. It therefore provides the link between knowledge acquisition and its production. Therefore, a productive organizational reflection will always seek to strike a balance between learning from past experiences to generate permit knowledge that will befriend in improving the work activities.The relationship between the individual and organizational development is other controversial element of productive organizational reflection. Reflection in organization fosters both organizational and individual development. Organizational reflection has a developmental value to the organization and the staff because it has become part of the main organizational practices that are relied upon in designing solutions to present and future organizational problems bit placing the staff at better positions to deal with organizational and individual challenges that may pose a thereat in future. Thus distinguishing individual from organizational reflection may be a challenge in cases where staff does not get special time to reflect on the organizational operations. Furthermore, organizational reflection is open, changing but unpredictable process because it can happen at anytime when organizations do not have procedures to guide the process of reflection. Just like other form of reflection, results of organizational reflection cannot be wholly predicated. In many instances, it doesnt yield the expected results but unintended consequences which may be used to address another organizational issue. This type of reflection is very dynamic in that a present successful refection may create an organizational barrier in future.There fore, organizations rely on past experience to diversify the future thinking and behavior of the organization through the ability to reflect on its previous operations by identifying past performances and activities (Kazi 2005). Organizational reflection is manifested though inquiry and evaluation that involves establishing problems, determining their meaning and developing usurp solutions. According to (Kazi 2005) organization reflection is a wide process that involves conversion of explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge that produces interpretive knowledge necessary for enhancement of individual knowledge through revisiting normal issues and problems (p. 121). wistful practice isnt an individual process but an organizational procedure that requires individual members of an organization to learn and modify their actions that are vital for organizational come out and performance.Reflection in organization is very important because of its share to individual learning which tran slates to organizational learning. Combination and sharing of individual learning is crucial to realization of organizational learning because individual learning may not present enough experience needed to accept identified challenges facing an organization. However, some organization do not have appropriate standards that can urge on sharing of knowledge and experiences especially when mechanisms for such sharing dont exist or the regulation of the organizations do not allow sharing or possibly if the staff do not know how to share such knowledge and experiences. Organizational management and particularly, the reflective manager must device and develop appropriate methods that can facilitate acquisition and sharing of organizational knowledge and experiences.The reflective manager in an organization is creditworthy for all processes and procedures involved in integrating and transfer of unsanded knowledge, experiences, behavior and skills within and outside the organization. As such, the manager must prove to the employees that reflection is an important activity that is all round and should involve every(prenominal) member of the organization. The manager must ensure that employees learn from previous mistakes, that they know what they think and feel as well as device procedures that will ensure that the employees understand and manage the barriers and challenges that face the organization and then develop strategies for future use through applying learned knowledge and skills. Reflective manager therefore provides appropriate environment for employees to focus on their past experiences as well as current activities that may help in generating required knowledge for use in the current organizational situation. As such, a reflective manager in an organization plays an important role in ensuring generation of knowledge and ideas from past experiences, repackaging of such experiences and ideas for the future use by the organization.Though many organization s have realized the value of reflection in their operations and the many stimuli that encourage reflection, there are equal detractors that hinder reflective practice. The most common challenge that faces organization in trying to use reflection in the management of their operation is the little time apportiond for reflection and analysis. The lack of importance that may accrue from informed reflection is the main reason why many managers dont allocate sufficient time for employees to reflect on their experiences and establishes their failures. Organizations allocate very little or no time for their employees to reflect on their accomplishments and performance through individual thinking or group thinking. Many organizations spend most of the time making decisions, building strategies, training and orientations. Such activities must be accompanied by required information and knowledge so that expected results may be achieved. Reflection will therefore help in prior understanding of a particular task before such task is accomplished so that preparations can be made for anticipated challenges and problems.Organizational reflection as opposed to individual reflection is a very expensive process not only on time allocation but also physical resources. For reflections to be productive, reflecting members must be in an appropriate environment that is free from the normal activities. Creating such an environment is quite expensive and organizations dont usually agree to organize staff retreats to quiet and conducive places that can ensure good results from reflection process. However, managers who have realized the real importance of reflection in their business operations create time and allocate adequate resources for the process of reflection as well as following out the results of such reflection sessionsAnother significant challenge that face application of reflection in an organization include pitiful communication systems that an organization uses especiall y if an organizations uses top-down communication system. The relationship among the individuals with the organizations, the relationships among different workgroups as well as the relationship between the organization and others hinders the creation of openness that is needed in the reflection process. The power of alarm for uncertainty may also derail the process of reflection. Additionally, the style of management that an organization uses may have-to doe with reflection especially if the organization uses authoritarian style of management where control, leadership and power is centralized to a single individual or group in the organization.ConclusionReflection is a complex and new organizational process that involves contemplation of tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge and experiences to create new information, knowledge and ideas that can be used to address a challenge within the organization. Through the reflection of the experiences and knowledge, learning capabilities of t he staff are enhanced thus dealing with challenges and threats becomes easy for the organization because it has well informed and knowledgeable staff. Therefore, reflection improves the organizational visualization of unexpected realities and results and how to react to them. Organizational reflection is currently gaining attention in many organizations as opposed to ancient times when it was considered to be of no value to the operations and performance of the organizations. Though there are more challenges facing application and implementation of reflection strategies in organizations, positive progress in available which is indicated by the value that organizations attach to information and knowledge in accomplishing business activities and solving organizational challenges and problems.